OT: PIM Software Support and Responsiveness

Posted by Ken
Jun 10, 2015 at 04:48 AM

I share your appreciation for good customer service, and try to support developers who seem to be motivated to provide a good product, and support, for reasons beyond just financial. And I also appreciate the value of forums, but do realize that they can be significant time commitments, sometimes without end. I recently saw a thread with posts from the developer of Cintanotes trying to explain why they needed to raise their prices some time ago. Some folks understood, but others had a tough time with the increase.

Devaluation of services seems to be much more common in this day and age with such wide access to “tools of the trade”. Professional photographers suffer from the same problem, and many now struggle for work when folks think they can produce the same product because they own an expensive camera. Unfortunately, photographers do not normally have the possibility of finding an angel investor motivated by “FOMO” (fear of missing out) looking to cash in when some big company buys up a small software firm for large sums of cash, rare as it is.

It is rare to find the perfect product from the perfect company in any market, so I try to do my best due diligence whne deciding on purchases. Good support certainly weighs heavily, but I still need a product that meets my needs. There have been a few programs of recent that I wanted to buy to support the developers, but they all seemed to be missing essential features that I needed. I do not envy them, as it seems like a tough way to make a living for many small developers. But, I always keep my eyes open just in case.

—Ken